Ramble Through Elk River Township-1854

HAUN, SHADDOCK, FISH

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 3/21/2017 at 19:38:36

Clinton Mirror-May 30, 1854

A Ramble-Elk River, June 1st

This morning we started from Lyons on a ramble into the country. For some time past the weather has been squally with an occasional thunder shower, but this morning the sky was clear, with a gentle breeze from the southwest. Really, the clear sunny skies of Italy which travelers have wrote so much of and pictured so grand, could not more beautiful and pleasant than this. The trees are in full leaf, and the fields are decked with growing crops for the coming harvest. On such a morning it was refreshing to take such a ride into the country to breathe pure air instead of that peculiar to a printing office. It afforded us a relaxation from mental exercise to take a view of nature now in full bloom to;

"Behold the tree with foliage crowned. Their branches wide displayed."

We took the road to Elk River, about two miles out we passed the grist-mill on Deer Creek, it is owned by C. Fish. Riding about two miles further are attention was drawn to a somewhat novel invention, at a farm house owned by Mr. Shaddock, it was a sheep churning. We had read that in olden times the ox treaded out the corn, which was succeeded by the flail, but they were not ingenious enough to use the innocent sheep to tread out the butter, or otherwise assist the domestics in making it. He was walking on one side of an inclined wheel which his heft moved round; this was geared to a crank connected by a rod to the churn dasher. It could be fixed as to have the churn in the house or out door at pleasure. This would prove very useful on many large diaries in this county; it costs about $30, and will churn about ten gallons of cream. We shall probably hear next of the sheep washing clothes by the crank of this wheel being attached to a machine for that purpose.

Passing along a little further, we stopped to enquire of an old man how land was selling about here, &c. He said that improved could be bought at 10 to $25 per acre; that he would ask $12 for his. There was a farm of 700 acres near which could be bought for $10; it was nearly all fenced, and about 100 acres ploughed. While this conversation was going on, our informant with his specks on was whittling out a shovel handle from a hickory stick naturally bent the right shape. He was an old Yankee who had farmed it in the east, and knows how to use the many natural advantages of the west to profit. Among the luxuries around his house we noticed several bee-hives; these he had originally taken from the wood, and now makes an average $12 out of each hive every summer. Truly, this is a land “flowing with milk and honey, and without price.’

Traveling on we come to Hauntown, a small village ten miles from Lyons and one from the Mississippi, in Elk River Township. It has one wagon shop, blacksmith and copper shop, distillery, saw-mill on a stream of the same name as the township, and a store owned by Mr. Haun, one of the early settlors, and whose name was probably the origin of the place being so called. Mr. Haun had just built a large and commodious brick building intended for a hotel. We hope to see it completed when we visit Hauntown again. Round here has been quarried what some call limestone, but if that we saw is a specimen, it is finer grained and harder than common limestone. Their school-house, and some houses in other parts of the county, are built of it, which present a neat appearance; a good window sill and jambs can be cut out of it. For durability it is superior to brick for building, and in point of cost is cheaper.

After a day’s ride and being out in the open air, we feel drowsy and little inclined to write; we shall resume our ramble in the morning, and at some other time we may give our readers the result.